'Privacy 101' at ACC's Annual Meeting of In-House Counsel

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An article by Catherine Dunn posted on law.com on the Corporate Counsel webpage.

This article discusses the recent Association of Corporate Counsel annual meeting, and provides a link regarding more information about the Association.

The article discusses a panel presentation provided at the meeting regarding privacy, entitled "Privacy 101".  The article states, "Among the topics they addressed were the U.S. approach to privacy at the federal and state levels, the challenges of complying with privacy laws in multiple jurisdictions, and changes to which in-house lawyers should be looking ahead."  According to the author the panel members consisted of the following, "The panel discussion was led by Kerry Childe, senior privacy and regulatory counsel at Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation; Andrea Charters, associate general counsel at Rosetta Stone, Inc.; and Aaron Mendelsohn, program manager for data privacy compliance at Eaton Corporation."

The article states, "A defining characteristic of U.S. privacy law is its "sectoral" approach, Childe explained. In contrast to a comprehensive framework in places such as the European Union, there are a significant number of laws that apply only to particular industries, such as health care and financial services. And "not all of those laws apply to every business," she said."

In addition, it is clear from the article that there are differing privacy laws, and there are major variations from state to state when it comes to privacy rights.  The article does discuss how the FTC enforces companies that have their own stated standards, "...if companies have a defined privacy policy, the Federal Trade Commission, operating under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, has been very active in enforcing compliance with the stated terms. That means, said Childe, that the FTC makes sure that companies are telling people what they will do with their information; that they don't do something with that information other than what they said; and that they don't misuse the information in any way."